Tumbleweeds roll in and blanket parts of US city

Workers clean up tumbleweeds in South Jordan, Utah (Brady McCombs/AP)

The gnarled icon of the Old West – ominously featured in movies as gunslingers square-off on dusty streets and townsfolk shake behind curtained windows – rolled in over the weekend and kept rolling until blanketing some homes and streets in parts of Utah.

Crews on Tuesday continued to plough, load and haul the twisted and dried tumbleweeds from neighbourhoods in South Jordan, four days after scores of the beachball-sized plants were bounced in by heavy winds.